Visualisation and Virtual Environments Community Club

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• Visualisation and Virtual Environments Community
  Club
• Computer Games and Interactive Entertainment
• Chairman Dr Steve Maddock
• University of Sheffield
• s.maddock_at_dcs.shef.ac.uk
• Conference Rooms 12/13
• Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
• Wednesday 25th October 2000

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My history in computer games A.Player

• Early 70s - a Pong clone (paddle hockey)

Late 70s, local cafe - Space Invaders
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Still playin ? 3D Graphics...

• 1984/85 - Elite for the BBC Micro

1984 - Wrote programs for McGregor and Watt,
The Art of Graphics for the IBM PC (and The
Art of Graphics for the Sinclair QL)
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Still playin ? Now, serious 3D...
PhD An Investigation of the Modelling-Animation
Relationship in Computer Graphics
1988-present Lecturer at University of
Sheffield Research area Computer Graphics
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Still playin ? And, now doing...

• 1998, Jan-Jul six month RAE-sponsored
  Industrial Sabbatical at Gremlin Interactive,
  Sheffield

1998? Continued collaboration with Gremlin, now
Infogrames Watch this space...
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Still playin after all these years...?

• Early 80s Queues outside WH Smith - Parents
  educational aspirations for children.
• kids just wanted to play?
• 90s-present Mass-market business
• consumers of all tastes, all genders, all ages
• IDSA report, March 2000, USA
• 1999 retail and online sales of 6.6 billion
• US motion picture industry 7.3 billion box
  office revenue
• 61 of gamers are over 18 43 of all gamers are
  female
• Average age of game players is 28

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Still playin after all these years...?

• Research on computer games technology academics
  join the game
• Computer and video games comes of age,
  conference held at MIT, Feb 2000
• Siggraph 2000 course Games Research the
  Science of Interactive Entertainment 6 out of
  45 courses were categorised as Game Development
  Interactive Technique areas of interest
• Eurographics 2001 (Manchester, Sept 2001) will
  include a games session as part of an industrial
  Theme.

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Still playin after all these years...?

• Serious use of game engines
• quote from BBC News Online Education, Saturday,
  21 October, 2000, Quake blows away design
  problems The grisly blow-em-away computer game
  Quake II has been modified to allow architects'
  clients to "run around" virtual buildings -
  without the guns and monsters.

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Todays programme am

• 10.00 Chairmans Welcome and Introduction
• Dr Steve Maddock (University of Sheffield)
• 10.15 Computer Games in Education
• Dr Alan Watt (University of Sheffield)
• 10.55 Coffee
• 11.20 Games Development in VRML
• Dr Lubo Jankovic (University of Birmingham)
• 11.50 RD in Computer Games
• Dr Ian Badcoe (Infogrames Studios Ltd)
• 12.30 Lunch ? 13.45

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Todays programme pm

• 13.45 The console market
• John Kirriemuir (Cent. Digital Library
  Research, University of Strathclyde)
• 14.25 Online and multiplayer gaming technology
• Tony Cox (Microsoft)
• 15.05 Tea
• 15.35 Entertainment and Beyond Where Art
  Design
• meets Computer Games
• Dr Stephen Bell (Nat. Cent. Computer Animation,
• Bournemouth University)
• 16.05 10 Unsolved Issues in Computer Graphics
• Chris Thornborrow (PixelFusion)
• 16.45 End of meeting